I had previously posted this under another name, but I've moved it over here.

It was possibly the shittiest situation in which Jacob had ever found himself. Every move he made Alice say "Oh, that's not going to work," despite the fact that she could even see him, and Emmet kept shouting, "Yow!" and "Whoo!," and Rosalie's smugness was SO OBVIOUS that he could practically hear it radiating off of her and that was so loud that he couldn't hear himself think, and of course the only person who could hear him think was the one person he didn't want to hear his thoughts because it was his EFFING IMPRINT'S FATHER who was LAUGHING, and Bella was trying not to join in, and Carlisle looked worried for Jake's life, and Esme kept muttering, "Oh, dear," and ON TOP OF IT ALL he was sure that Jasper was deliberately making him feel even more awkward and uncomfortable than he already was and the only good thing about this situation was that Nessie was standing in front of him except—oh yeah—she was glaring so she looked like one of the undead and she was leaning away from him with her arms crossed and he never saw her so angry and her family was just watching from the porch and so yeah this was basically the shittiest situation in which he'd ever found himself.

This conversation was not going how he had planned. No. Not at all.

"So what you're saying is that you are forced to cherish me."

Jake's words tumbled from his mouth. "No! It's not that at all, I mean, I have to because I can't not, because you're you, but I wasn't, like, forcibly drawn to you because that's how fate or whatever wanted it—" A thought, an idea struck him. "Well, okay, it's sort of like gaydar." That came out wrong. "Without, you know, the gay part."

Everyone on the porch started laughing, Emmet the loudest. Jake considered yelling at him to go fuck himself, but—well, obviously that didn't work in context of what he just said.

Nessie's eyebrows twitch upwards. "So imprinting is like 'dar.'"

"Well… yeah." He was momentarily distracted by the glow of her skin in the daylight, the shimmer off her auburn curls, the shadows on her eyes and under her cheekbones.

"I can see where he's trying to go with this," murmured Edward. "It's just… not working."

Nessie glared at Jacob. The expression was so reminiscent of that time he made that stupidass decision of kissing Bella. Speaking of which…

"Alright, so my mom doesn't choose you and suddenly you go gay and I'm the boy you're forced to cherish."

Ah, fuck. He felt even more flustered and awkward. He couldn't tell whether that was him or Jasper, but he glared at Jasper anyway.

"No! No, this is coming out all wrong…" He stared at the floor and started to pace, as if that would bring him enlightenment on how to talk to his imprint. Wasn't it supposed to be easy? Well, he guessed that even if it was supposed to be easy that thought could throw itself out the window, what with her whole goddamn vampire family watching like it was a game show and all.

Idea. Another one. "All right! I got it."

"Won't work!" said Alice.

"Yow!" said Emmet.

Jacob ignored them.

"So you know that movie The Sixth Sense?" ("Oh dear," said Esme.)

Nessie seemed to consider this for a moment.

"Alright, so now that my mother's the undead love of your life who you have to keep seeing anyway you're now forced to cherish me instead. As a boy," she added.

Bella made an odd, exasperated noise. Edward sighed, an amused smirk still playing at his lips. Rosalie had an amused smirk as well, except it wasn't playing so much as it was waging war.

"No, that's not the point!" Good god, Jake, what happened to the part where, oh I don't know, you KNEW the English language? "What I'm saying is is that—well, imprinting, it's like a sixth sense, where, you know, I'm not forced to, you know, love you—which I do, love you I mean—but it's like my body smacking me upside the head and saying, 'Hey Jake, get your act together, because that girl right there is your soul mate.'" His voiced had gone deeper than usual to mimic the way his instincts spoke to him. "As in even without all that freaky wolf crap we would still be made for each other it just—it would have taken a lot longer for me to realize."

A lot. He winced, pain at the sudden memory. Take the baby. Whatever the hell situation that freaky wolf crap had him in now, he was still grateful; without it, she wouldn't even be here for him to argue with.

Throw it out the window.

"It was never Bella—I mean—" He looked at Bella, who was still watching him like she was mildly pained at what he was putting himself through. "—don't get me wrong, you're great and beautiful and awesome and all, and I did love you—" Oh SHIT how was he managing to make it worse? "—well, I still do, obviously just not—okay—but, I mean, from the get-go, it was her, it was always her." He was looking at Nessie now, whose offended expression and body language had not changed one bit.

There was a moment of silence, in which everyone but Renesmee sort of shifted uncomfortably (you know it's bad when vampires started to shift uncomfortably).

Then Nessie spoke again, her voice clear and low. She wasn't used to using it. He wished she would communicate with him her normal way, but this was as close as he was getting.

"So you were never attracted to my mother, just subconsciously to her ovaries."

Jacob winced. He couldn't help but admire her bluntness. It was one thing he loved about her.

But how to respond to that?

"Uh…"

"Whoo!" Emmet cheered for Nessie. Jacob glared at him.

"I mean, I don't know how to put it—as far as we go… I don't know how else to say it without sounding like your father—" Cue growl. "—but we fit, you know, we mesh, and the whole imprinting thing is just like... a way to tell me that we do because I would have been too stupid to figure it out otherwise—"

In a burst of speed (that Jake admired, obviously), Nessie got closer to him, swung her hand back, and smacked him. Hard. On top of that, as she smacked him he got an image of her smacking him, so basically he was bitch-slapped twice at the same time.

It hurt.

She turned on her heel and stormed away, and he could see the color high in her cheeks.

"Saw that coming," said Alice.

Rosalie finally succumbed to laughter.

Jake felt like banging his head into a wall, but there wasn't one close enough, so he settled for sitting on the ground and smacking himself on the forehead, because he felt that he hadn't been smacked enough that day. A sense of despair settled over him, and he was past the point of caring about whether Jasper had any influence on that or not.

"She'll come back. Just let her sort it out." Edward. Jake looked up to catch Edward doing the mind-reading leech equivalent of cocking his ear to a noise. "And smash a few trees," he added.

"I ruined it."

"She'll be fine. You got through to her." Bella this time.

"Yeah? And how the hell do you know?"

"I'm her mother, Jake." Duhh, was what she wanted to add.

He grumbled.

Emmett approached. "Sooo Jake…" He waggled his eyebrows. Before he had a chance to mention anything suggestive about gaydar, Jake groaned, covered his ears, and plopped backwards onto the grass.

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